Eastern Promises

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

The actors and the characters merge and form a reality above and apart from the story, and the result is a film that takes us beyond crime and London and the Russian mafia and into the mystifying realms of human nature.

Premiere Glenn Kenny

One of Cronenberg's subtlest, most insinuating pictures, and one of the highlights of the year so far.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

Cronenberg has, as Guillermo del Toro did in "Pan's Labyrinth," crafted both a drama and a fairy tale -- and he's done it in an entertainment as cracking as you could wish for.

The New York Times A.O. Scott

The rigor of Mr. Cronenberg’s direction sometimes seems at odds with the humanism of Mr. Knight’s script, but more often the director’s ruthless formal command rescues the story from its maudlin impulses. Mr. Knight aims earnestly for your heartstrings, but Mr. Cronenberg insists on getting under your skin. The result is a movie whose images and implications are likely to stay in your head for a long time.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

Cronenberg's follow-up to "A History of Violence" -- starring the same lead, Viggo Mortensen, in a very different part -- lacks the theoretical dimension of its predecessor, but it's no less masterful in its fluid storytelling and shocking choreography of violence.

Variety Todd McCarthy

A superbly wrought yarn set in the milieu of first-generation Russian mobsters in London that is simultaneously tough-minded and compassionate about the human condition, Eastern Promises instantly takes its place among David Cronenberg's very best films.

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

A dark and mesmerizing immersion into a distinctive world.

The Hollywood Reporter Sura Wood

Cronenberg and screenwriter Steve Knight masterfully orchestrate an atmosphere of danger and dread for a descent into an underworld inhabited by the Russian mafia in London.

Village Voice J. Hoberman

A rhapsodic movie directed with considerable formal intelligence and brooding power from an original screenplay by Steve Knight, Eastern Promises is very much a companion to "A History of Violence."

Slate Dana Stevens

David Cronenberg's elegant treatise on the metaphysics of violence.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

Viggo Mortensen's performance is flat-out brilliant, and this relentlessly dramatic thriller represents a mid-life growth spurt for its director, David Cronenberg.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

It's Cronenberg's film, but it's the actors who elevate Eastern Promises from mere thriller to some other, more disturbing plane.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

An icily seductive parable about family, power, unconventional justice and the perils of answered prayers.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Even with his clothes on, this is Mortensen's best and richest performance, worthy of serious awards consideration. He lends a moral complexity to Eastern Promises that makes it much more than just a very accomplished action thriller.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

This is the first time, though, his (Mortensen)performance seemed so much bigger than the film surrounding it. That he manages the feat with so few wasted gestures puts him in line with the greats.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

An unusually strong crime thriller, Eastern Promises comes from director David Cronenberg, a meticulous old-school craftsman of a type that is becoming increasingly rare.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

In Eastern Promises, shot to envelop by the great Peter Suschitzky, Cronenberg brings us face to face with the horror of self.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

The restraint of both director and actor makes this steely gangster drama reverberate long after it ends. This kind of mystery is rare in a film culture that demands answers before the credits roll.

Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano

Expertly realized and gunmetal slick, Eastern Promises whirs along with perfect efficiency, but doesn't stir much in the way of visceral horror despite its penchant for treating the human body like a chicken carcass on a block. (Squeamishness, yes.)

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Cronenberg's deeper purpose is to pull audiences into an affecting, powerful story about right and wrong.

Film Threat Pete Vonder Haar

A genuinely engrossing film.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Here is an excellent crime thriller made with grown-ups in mind: Yep, it must definitely be fall.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

The violence here is never in the service of spectacle, always of the story.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

A thoroughly entertaining film by a director at the height of his ability.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

What it doesn't have is the resonance of Cronenberg's "A History of Violence," a film that exploited the same genre even while transcending its limitations. Eastern Promises delivers, but not on that scale.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

The first must-see adult film of the young fall.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

An engaging thriller done in the Cronenberg style is still worth anyone's time. And this one boasts memorable turns from Naomi Watts, Armin Mueller-Stahl, and Vincent Cassel.

USA Today Claudia Puig

Eastern Promises has a compelling story and strong performances to back up what may seem excessive or sensationalistic.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

It's an academic meditation in underworld-thriller drag -- a movie that looks about as close to a straight-ahead, down-and-dirty genre entertainment as anything the director has made since his exploding-head horror days.

New York Magazine David Edelstein

It’s engrossing, and Mueller-Stahl’s mix of Old World chivalry and murderousness is scarier than Jason and Freddy combined.

The New Yorker Anthony Lane

Cronenberg made a movie called “The Dead Zone,” and I sometimes wonder whether, for all his formal brilliance, he has ever torn himself away from that locked-in, airless state of mind. You walk out of Eastern Promises feeling spooked and sullied, as if waking from a noisome dream.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

Cronenberg has a distinctive style – deadpan absurdism laced with fright and all executed with slow deliberation. But too much of Eastern Promises is cultish and silly.

Empire Dorian Lynskey

Mortensen shines but a contrived, issue-driven plot destabilises what could have been a great Russian gangster movie.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

Eastern Promises is intensely anti-dramatic.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Eastern Promises is a jumbled string of mob-related clichés that mesh into something that’s derivative and at times uninteresting.